This lesson could have cost me a lot more. Larry, thank you for showing me who you are. I do think you sell yourself too short but who am I to quip with you not meeting your word? The fact stands. You blame the designer but he can’t help with your integrity problem either. He met his word and struggles beyond that. We all have struggles–you haven’t the slightest idea of mine and you have attempted to impose on my graces. What you can hope for when you operate this way is limited to the extent of your illusions. I pray they last because at this rate, you won’t.

I could have made it myself for what I paid you to do it, while I worked elsewhere to pay you, while you didn’t do the work. Have you ever done such a thing? Do you know what it is like to pay for a deliverable only to receive long-winded excuses, a sling of insults, an ache in the head and an extreme pain in the ass? I will tell you: I am surprised and not in a good way.

So while you have my money and I don’t have the deliverable, you have my attention here. When something seems wrong like this does, it gets lodged in my craw and then I feel all the responsibility in the world to right it. I don’t know who died and made me keeper of the justice but I wish they would rise again and relieve me.

While I breathe until something else happens, here is my best advice: Fuss around with the shit you have been given and produce what you can. Words are cheap. Make something you are proud to put your name on, Larry! I thought $$$ would be motivating because to name my price for a job and get paid for it out of the gate like you did would motivate the shit out of me! What else can I say? I was wrong. This isn’t working out. I want my money back.

People put energy into feedback like this for others when they care. Most people wouldn’t waste the keystrokes, like throwing oxygen after the dead is only good for the bugs eating the carcass, feedback for someone you don’t care about getting any better is besides the point.

I am asking for now what I asked for then–provide something valuable, something positive to credit you for, something to promote, something to add to your repertoire of talent, something that makes us a team to make something more. I saw this project as an opportunity when I presented it. You agreed then. You appear to be taking it as a victim now. I implore you to take responsibility for the project you signed-up to do, not make it a loss.

This reminds me, we have a choice. We wake each morning and to some extent, regardless of our circumstances, we get to decide: Do I want to be a decent human being today or a piece of shit liar, for instance. I think it is that ignorance of choice in the first place that gets a lot of us screwed-up.

So much goes untold. From here on out I will tell the juicy parts. The parts that drip off the table, I will allow to land here, in addition to the party invites and reviews. Why not? I find myself astute and observing. To keep my musings to myself in the fashion of burying them in a notebook until the pages choke with my scrawls or shredding them of context to fit facebook is really throwing away a thing I am good at. Writing. It could be the thing. To repress myself is not humility, it is self-hatred. Enough of that.

I write to find out what I think. This is true for me and is so for Stephen King, even before he said it. There. I may walk and talk to find out what I think too but that is a longer road. I often take a friend at that so I don’t get lost. I repeat myself when I walk and talk. Not so in writing. Writing gets me out of my head. That makes no sense but it is no less true.

These posts will be tagged Uncategorized. Feels blasphemous to write it. Previewed the post to see that it worked. I didn’t get kicked-out or have my writing fingers fall off so that’s good, I will continue.

“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”

New restaurant–Open but not ready for Grand Opening–makes it’s debut and welcomes a series of parties echoing the heart of the place. When parties serve as a call for a decided match in clientele, no matter the game, it is a win for all. You don’t have to capture all the people to make a place or party successful, just the right people at the right place and those are exactly those that show-up. That is it. It is as magical and as plain as it sounds.

Staying home is magical and plain too, I get it. A burgeoning hermit as there ever was, I find the collection of a few dowdy people (besides me) creates a lot more to live for than I ever could create on my own. I think this is a human way and so I don’t take it too personally. It is a matter of human nature to socialize, to connect for real. When we forgo connection for a variety of reasons and excuses, we have a hand in creating the problems we see in the world and deny ownership of yet suffer for.

If you didn’t have your reasons and excuses, what would you be doing now? How would you suffer less?

Company parties tend to be rote so therein lies a fine opportunity to bust out of the office box and make a party that is particularly fantastic. Take care to add elements of surprise and delight.

For formal/large parties, keep attention to the feel of the broader space, it ought to convey respect and coziness. Be sure to see to the finer details like table arrangements. Seating assignments are everything. Draft a chart and then ask two people what they think of it. Do not ask questions at this stage, just employ their recommendations. Listen to all the stories, repeat nothing and people will continue to tell you what they think of your seating arrangements unabashedly for all of your party planning years to come.

Keep hold of the objective of the party, the essence, which is the kind of gift you want to give and check-in to see how the party is shaping-up to it. Make adjustments on the fly if you can carry them out covertly and without hurting anyone. Otherwise let it go.

A party is a gift to many in one shot, and your job as the party maven is to be sure the gift is delivered.

When you quit a job and your co-workers confront you with a send-off lunch and it is so spectacular that you continue the lunch monthly for a year. As many as twelve people attended, I dinned alone only once. What made it stick was two questions, set in advance of the lunch, that we went around the table taking turns answering. It was so simple, we didn’t expect it to be so raw and satisfying. In 30 mins upwards of an hour, we connected more than each of us had in the larger part of a year working in that office neck and neck together. It was remarkable although we never remarked on it, we just kept showing up.

In case you were wondering… I quit because the team needed a chief happiness officer and the director wouldn’t allow me to be it there so I had to be it someplace else.